A Weekly Conversation with the Voice

09/02/2017

A Weaving: Nonviolence and Wholeness

Is everything whole? What defines the nature of your experience? Consider, many carry with them the belief that people are less than or better than by the color of their skin. Consider a different belief — we are all here together on this planet. Consider, is my experience of this person defined by my judgments and prejudgments. Consider is my experience of this person different when I think he or she is whole?

Weigh these questions out – place the nature of your experience in one hand defined by less-than better than (fragmentation) and place the nature of your experience in the other hand defined by wholeness. What can you learn from this simple sensing?

Now when we talk about the nature of your experience we are talking about everything – all that comes into your senses – all. So less-than better than is a very large shaper of experience. Standing in the middle of wholeness provides direct experience.

In your life the better moments always involve direct experience – unfiltered, not distorted or altered.

Consider Violence and Non-Violence and its connection to wholeness. We all have to solve problems, many problems we experience involve other people When you put all these different personalities together with free will, problems, disagreements, decisions, approaches, desires are bound to be different. So what do you do?

Violence arises from a distortion of experience. Energetically violence is the absence of not listening. Violence is always energetic — expressed equally by visible physical actions, in feelings, in words, in thoughts, in fantasy. Many who never would act in physical violence, participate in other forms. Remember also, in many cultures violence is a form of entertainment.

As you journey from childhood to teen-age years to adulthood to being an elder – what have you learned about violence? Consider, violence is a major form of entertainment in many cultures. Consider, violence of some form, lesser and greater, is a taught directly and indirectly as a preferred way of resolving differences and getting what you want.

Energetically all forms and acts of violence have the same signature. The emotional trauma of someone physically attacked can equal the emotional trauma of someone who is excluded, stalked, harassed. Understand also that anger hurled at another with the intention to suppress, intimidate, redirect or reject is an energetic form of violence.

There is much less teaching about non-violence. Rules against violence are NOT teaching about non-violence. Fear of punishment for violence is NOT teaching about non-violence. Non-violence is a path of wholeness. Non-violence is full of listening. Listening provides the most immediate access to non-violence. Non-violence is a path to wholeness. Non-violence promotes direct experience.

There is always work you can do on non-violence. It really helps to have a learning partner. Anger is a tricky thing often named as helpful to get things moving.

People often ask, “So what do I do with anger?” Send the energy into the earth let the earth cleanse and transform it – or transform it. Remember the second principle of Energy – All energy is capable of transformation.

People often ask, “Isn’t anger just a natural part of being human , just another emotion?” Well certainly it is a common emotion. Be careful commonness is not a word that means normal or natural.

“So what are you saying we shouldn’t be angry?” You chose, it is not up to me to chose. There is no offering of shouldness in this conversation --- at all. What is offered is another path of learning, often called non-violence. So practice non-violence and see what happens to your anger. This is very different than having a practice that says, “Stop being angry. Anger is bad.”

Essential to the practice of non-violence is the cultivation of qualities. There are so many to pick from: listening, , appreciation, speak the truth, celebration, respect, learning, free will, offering, speak from the heart, mindfulness, meditation, stillness, witnessing, gifts, kindness, generosity, smiling, walking side by side, invitation, service, blessings, prayer, sacredness, release, compassion, healing, helping. See what happens to your anger when you cultivate qualities?

Essential to the practice of non-violence is a learning partner. First and foremost, they walk along side one another with balance and respect helping one another learn about non-violence. In a learning partnership there is much listening, sensing and noticing. The large open invitation to speak the truth and to speak from the heart shapes the conversation. Each person can share his fears and darker thoughts and trust that the other is listening. The belief in the other’s wisdom is always present.

Essential to the practice of non-violence is a plan to handle your disturbances. Personal disturbance energetically means —unbalanced, not centered, over taken by emotion or thoughts, thrown into habit, disengaging). Just like the changing weather, storms blow in unexpectedly. Though with careful noticing many disturbances have hints they are arriving. Have a plan – a way of catching the disturbance before it reaches full expression. A good plan also has a way to interrupt a pattern of disturbance. Rehearse your plan go over it with a learning partner. What the pre-signs of a disturbance for you? Change your breathing. Stop or Pause, ask for a break. Initiate any practice of centering.

In your plan to step out of disturbance apply the principles of Moreness. If you wish to be grounded and centered shift your attention to the Whole.

There is always more to the situation than I understand.

There is always more that I can learn.

There is always more connection to be experienced.

There is always more to this person than I see.

There are always more possibilities present in the field to be revealed